New BOM Process for Improved Preproduction Processes

Previously, Tadano’s engineering and manufacturing divisions at the company’s plants in Germany managed all relevant data and information via a single BOM. However, this single-BOM approach no longer satisfied the company’s product creation requirements because the two divisions expected very different things from the BOM: While engineering needed a complex functional description, the production BOM was supposed to contain information which by its structure, content and type would provide optimal support for manufacturing workflows.

Example: A component with two different types of paintwork represents two configurations from a manufacturing point of view, but just one when seen from the perspective of the CAD authoring program.

As part of a “One ERP” project, Tadano wished to separate these two perspectives and have the two divisions work with two independent BOMs in future: an engineering bill of material (EBOM) for engineering processes and a manufacturing bill of material (MBOM) after handover to production.

Tadano believed that this separation would improve collaboration between its engineering and production units and entrusted CENIT subsidiary Coristo with the project. The company specializes in process and IT consulting in the SAP product lifecycle management sphere.

Coristo developed a concept and provided implementation support during the initial data migration, which required consolidating the MBOMs within the target system. The project foresaw that in future, ongoing synchronization between MBOM and EBOM and the handover to manufacturing would be performed by the software application SAP GSS.

Coristo supported Tadano’s BOM process via a series of use cases including bulk changes, corresponding requests as well as scenarios for split positions and the respective conflict resolution. To this end, solution concepts were developed, tested and implemented together with the client. The decisive factor for project success proved to be intensive user training on the concept of separate BOMS and the use of SAP GSS in line with the defined use cases and approaches.

Today, Tadano successfully manages its handover-to-manufacturing process via SAP GSS. Management of the manufacturing BOMs, which previously fell within the remit of the engineering division, is now the responsibility of the production planning unit. To attain this goal, Tadano had been sure to involve all affected units in the project from the very beginning.